Opportunity Fund offers micro lending to help small Bay Area businesses succeed

Members of the Oakland based cleaning cooperative, Natural Home Cleaning Professional, use only eco-friendly products and a signature cleaning technique that is, according to the women, gentle on the body.

Every weekday morning at quarter to six, Erica Del Toro, 33, greets the early morning administrative staff in the one-room office that serves as headquarters of the Fruitvale district cleaning company where she works. She heads to the small supply room in the back, stocks up on cleaning supplies and picks up a canvas envelope bearing her name.

The envelope she collects has been stuffed with her work assignments for the day—mostly private homes in Oakland, occasionally a small office—and Google Map directions to each, printed out the day before by the office staff. By 7 am, Del Toro is back in the car with her cleaning partner, 26-year-old Alejandra Arceo, both of them wearing standard-issue green t-shirts beneath matching aprons emblazoned with the company logo. On the surface, the pair could be any number of immigrant Latina house cleaners setting out to tidy the homes of Oakland’s more affluent residents.

But, unlike many of their industry peers, the women don’t earn an hourly wage—and they certainly don’t answer to the folks in the office who coordinate their assignments and cut their paychecks. Del Toro and Arceo are business owners. They are paid in profit. They set their own hours. And their company—the East Oakland cooperative, Natural Home Cleaning Professionals—nets $1.4 million dollars in annual revenue—a decent chunk of change, even if it is split between the 36 worker-owners.